These are great days for lettuces in the garden. There are lettuces in nearly all of the beds, and they form a crazy quilt of reds and greens, ruffles and smooths, uprights and sprawlers. In the grocery store one can usually find red lettuce, green lettuce, and romaine, but the range of possibilities in a home garden is much wider.
There are a dozen varieties in our beds, out of the nearly twenty we grow in the course of the year. They have wonderful names: speckles and freckles, outstanding (a very upstanding romaine), arctic king, red sails and red velvet, buttercrunch, Hungarian pink, black-seeded Simpson, little gem and two marvels: winter marvel and marvel of 4 seasons.
The lettuces are scattered throughout the beds because they are ultimate diplomats. They have no quarrel with anyone. They are happy to be among beets and radishes, turnips or rutabagas, kales and chards and even onions. And they have a positive love affair going with interspersed garlics.
So if you have the good fortune to munch on a Monastery salad, know that it is a miracle of abundance, composed of a most humble and taken-for-granted but actually quite astonishing creation of nature: Lettuce!
Gassho
Penny